PROVIDENCE, R.I., Dec. 17 (UPI) -- Some 40 percent of U.S. nursing home residents die with some degree of dementia, researchers estimate.
Researchers at Brown University in Providence, R.I., and Hebrew SeniorLife/Deaconess Medical Center in Boston found the proportion of nursing home residents with dementia who benefited from Medicare hospice care nearly tripled -- while the duration of care more than doubled -- from 1999 to 2006.
Lead author Susan Miller, a gerontologist at Brown University and colleagues analyzed data on more than 3.8 million deceased nursing home residents.
Hospice care provides medical benefits to patients with dementia, including more attentive assistance with feeding and medication, but Medicare requires patients to have a terminal prognosis of six months or less before they can be enrolled in hospice. The prognosis of someone with dementia is hard to predict, Miller said.
"Families and caregivers don't always recognize it as a terminal illness, but people die of dementia," Miller said in a statement.
The paper, published in the American Journal of Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias, found the national average length of stay for nursing home patients with advanced dementia increased from 46 days in 1999 to 118 days in 2006, but in eight states more than 25 percent retained hospice care for more than six months -- Oklahoma Alabama, New Mexico, Wyoming, South Carolina, Mississippi, Arizona and North Dakota.
